It has been a week of highs and lows for Ros Canter and Lordships Graffalo at the Paris Olympics. They contributed to Great Britain’s marvellous team gold, but it would be fair to say that things haven’t entirely gone their way.
Ros and the 12-year-old gelding know as “Walter”, owned by Archie and Michele Saul, started their 2024 Olympic eventing campaign with a 23.4 dressage, which left them in sixth individually.
They followed this up with a wonderful cross-country round, seemingly jumping clear and stopping the clock seven seconds inside the optimum time. However, Ros was awarded 15 penalties for a missed flag at fence 21d, a decision that was finally upheld by officials some six-and-a-half hours after the cross-country concluded.
“[The appeal process] yesterday carried on for a lot longer than it should,” stated Ros after her first round of showjumping today (29 July). “It would have been lovely to have had a bit of time to celebrate and enjoy what happened yesterday, and so far I haven’t been able to do that. It’s left a little bit of a bitter taste.
“I feel unbelievably sorry for Lordships Graffalo’s owners, who have been such phenomenal supporters of mine. They found the whole thing quite a hard pill to swallow, but we know we’ve got the best cross-country horse in the world and we think he gave everybody an absolutely stellar performance yesterday. I hope everyone enjoyed watching him as much as I had the pleasure of riding him.
“The support I had yesterday evening – everybody’s been so kind,” said Ros, referring to her teammates. “We’re competitive, but we’re also great friends and whatever happens, I know we’ll hold our heads high and be very proud of each other.
“I just think he [Walter] should be celebrated. Luck wasn’t on our side yesterday with the decision making, so we had to move on and I really concentrated on getting the job done for the team today.”
British Equestrian’s technical director and eventing performance manager Richard (Dickie) Waygood said the entire British camp were “broadsided” by the 15 penalties allocated to Ros.
“We were absolutely over the moon with Ros and we had no idea about the 15 penalties,” explained Dickie. “It is no secret that we pushed it, we appealed it, we went as far as we could with it. But unfortunately it’s a field of play decision and the ground jury weren’t budging and they wouldn’t budge with anyone else’s penalties.”
Outside of eventing, the FEI’s general regulations allow the use of any broadcast footage from a broadcaster that is employed by an event’s organising committee to be used as evidence. At the 2024 Paris Games, OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services) footage is available because they’re employed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to cover the Games.
But eventing-specific rules for Olympics say: “Only official video recording can be used as evidence. Officials will clarify before the start of cross-country and inform chefs d’equipe/riders at a meeting/briefing which video recording will represent the official view, to avoid any misunderstanding.”
Dickie said that it was confirmed in advance of the cross-country in Versailles that the static cameras the organisers had in place would be used.
“There was no flex,” said Dickie. “That’s why it was so frustrating because if they saw the OBS footage, which belongs to the OC [organising committee], firstly the side-on view, they’d have seen that the girth – this is my opinion so I’m going to be biased – had travelled past the points of the flags before the flag came down. Then obviously everyone’s seen the head-on footage. You’ve also got to bear in mind the design of the fence with the flags not set at the back of it. And also you could argue whether their camera was in the correct position.”
Dickie said that the British team “left no stone unturned”.
“We got really good legal advice, but at the end of the day, unfortunately, when it’s a field-of-play decision, you can appeal it, you can ask for a review, you can go as far as you can, but this is what we’ve got to live with.”
Speaking of the future of these decisions, Dickie said: “While we’ve got subjective decisions, this is always going to happen, so we have to live with it.
“It was then a case of right, that’s behind us and my next concern was that the team didn’t walk around with their chins on the floor. If we were told three weeks ago, we would go into the final day five marks in front with a pole in hand, we would have taken that and be quite happy, so that’s the way we sort of spun it the other way. And we were still lying in gold medal position and we basically had to fight for every bit of it and that’s exactly what they did today. I thought those last three rounds from our riders were absolutely stunning.”
Ros and Walter ultimately finished 21st. If you were to play a game of “what if”, the 15 penalties didn’t prevent Ros from winning an individual medal, but it did cost her fifth place.
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